I have to admit that I’m a ‘sucker’ for female vampires. Since I have access to streaming movies, I can pick out movies that I might not otherwise rent. I could tell that Blood Angels, a.k.a. Thralls, was going to be one of those movies that I might not otherwise have rented. (I almost didn’t make it through the introductory voiceover. If you want to use a deep voice, find someone with a deep voice.)
The movie is about several half-vampire women, called thralls, that want to escape from their evil vampire captor, Mr. Jones. Thralls can’t fly or turn humans or anything, which makes it difficult. However, Marlene finds a possible way out. She manages to steal Mr. Jones’s Big Book of Vampire Stuff, Latin Edition, and finds a passage about some ritual to make a thrall into a full vampire. With one exception, the women manage to escape.
Cut to a woman waiting at what I’m assuming was supposed to be a bus station. Her name is Ashley and she’s waiting for her big sister, Leslie, to pick her up. It’s late. It’s dark. Of course, several guys try to attack her. Leslie shows up just in time to attack and drain them of blood. Yes, Leslie is one of the thralls. (Ashley doesn’t see any of the blood sucking. She doesn’t know and won’t find out until later.)
They go to a large building that the women are using for raves. There, a wide assortment of people are waiting to get in. Some do. Some don’t. They’re collecting some sort of emotional energy for the ceremony, which has to be held on the Winter solstice at midnight. Just as the moment is about to come, Mr. Jones shows up and starts wreaking havoc. Turns out that it wasn’t that easy. The ceremony is to bring over a demon. As you might expect, the ladies win. (Well, three of them win. The rest aren’t as lucky.)
The voice over was the first of many things to bother me. As much as I like vampire movies, I hate it when vampires don’t reflect. I’ve mentioned this before and I’ll probably mention it again. They’re physical objects that light interacts with. What is it about being a vampire that makes their photons not interact with reflective surfaces? I’m sure that there was some reason. As far as I can tell, it’s currently only used as a plot device to let other characters know that there’s a vampire around, and even that’s far fetched. How is it that the protagonist always has a mirror and is looking at just the right angle?
Most of the actors were in other movies, but the acting is just a little over the top. I think everyone involved knew that this wasn’t going to be a serious movie. Most of the action is gratuitous and/or exaggerated. You also have gratuitous nudity, some of which I’m not complaining about. Add to this some really corny one-liners and you have a B movie that you’ll either love or hate.
There further into the movie, the less obvious the explanations were. Towards the end, the writers were throwing things in at random. (Leslie and another thrall figure that if a thrall is half a vampire, two thralls could make a whole vampire.) I think at this point, the writers knew that very few viewers would remain.
I’m not saying that I don’t recommend the movie. Several of the women were pretty hot and made the movie worth watching. Unfortunately, many of the scenes are dark and you can’t always get a great view of the women. In fact, one of the women has snakes that come out of her chest. That alone may make the movie for some people. The bad news is that it’s one brief scene late in the movie. All I know is that I’m glad I was able to get it streaming through Netflix.
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